EU to offer Turkey more cash for Syrian refugees before Erdogan meeting

13.03.2018 14:33

The European Union’s executive is due to approve a further 3 billion euros ($3.7 billion) in funding for Syrian refugees living in Turkey, EU officials said, before a meeting with President Tayyip Erdogan later this month, Reuters reports.

Europe’s relations with Erdogan have been fraught in recent years but the EU depends on Turkey to keep a tight lid on immigration from the Middle East, where the war in Syria has killed hundreds of thousands and pushed millions from homes.

Top EU officials will meet Erdogan on March 26 in the Bulgarian city of Varna despite misgivings among many on the European side.

The bloc’s top migration official Dimitris Avramopoulos will announce on Wednesday that the European Commission proposes the extra funding on projects benefiting Syrian refugees in Turkey, the sources told Reuters.

Turkey has accepted 3.5 million refugees from Syria, and the EU is already spending a first 3 billion euro installment to help them.

Over a million more refugees and migrants reached the EU in 2015, most of them flowing through Turkey. Brussels agreed to pay to help host migrants on the Turkish soil in exchange for Ankara preventing more from trying to cross the Aegean to Greece.

Site Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Internet Explorer 8 supports. When using the information should be referred. When using information on the websites of the relevant passages are required.